Atlantic Health Jets Training Facility

Florham Park, NJ, United States

For the first time, the New York Jets have their entire organization under one roof. The new Jets Training Center and Corporate Headquarters serves as the team’s corporate front office (sales, marketing, merchandise, and community/media relations), home of football operations (general manager, scouting, player management), and the team’s dedicated training facilities (playing fields, classrooms, weight room, coaches’ offices, physical therapy). Because the building houses such a wide range of users (players, coaches, executives, media, corporate sponsors), the design needed to meet all of their disparate needs and schedules. To do this, the building blurs the boundaries between the different branches of the organization by focusing all of the spaces on the playing fields. The ownership believes that the most successful franchise is one where everyone realizes that ultimately, success is only achieved on the field. The building becomes a physical representation of the entire organization and its architecture reflects its desire to create a culture of winning. The building program includes a 121,000-sf two story structure and an 80,000-sf indoor pre-engineered field house. The 27-acre campus includes 3 natural turf fields, one artificial turf field, outdoor sand and incline training structures, 3 separate landscaped parking lots, a water retention pond, and a field storage building. The artificial turf fields are oriented exactly 3 degrees off North in order to align exactly with the new Meadowlands Stadium where the Jets will play their home games. Indoor and outdoor artificial turf fields mirror each other, with the rest of the program either straddling the divide between or surrounding them. This siting achieves several things: it surrounds the fields with the interior spaces connecting the business and football ops offices to the training facilities, creates a stadium-like atmosphere for the players, and shields the fields from being filmed by the sports media.